Book 29: Monster

♦ ♦ ♦ Here’s a book I read because it was a requirement for my kid’s freshman English class. I’d never heard of it, and he thought it was pretty decent, so I jumped in. The first thing that struck me was that the main character, a teenager, was in a position that is every mother’s nightmare. He’s been implicated in a crime and thrown in jail. He’s old enough to be in regular prison. As a mom, it freaked me out. The district attorney even calls him a monster, thus the title. I won’t ruin the book, it’s a short one, but suffice it to say that it will make you think. It will also make you examine your own feelings about people on trial. We are guaranteed the right to be “innocent until proven guilty.” Next time you’re watching the news and see that someone’s been arrested, dissect your thoughts about that person. It’s quite interesting. This book was good, not great, but worth a read. I might have given it two point five diamonds had it not been written from such an interesting point of view.